Shack: No one gets surprised when a publisher announces retailer-exclusive pre-order bonuses for their AAA game. However, very rarely do publishers go on record to admit that retailers are strong-arming them into the practice. But that's exactly what Metro: Last Light publisher Deep Silver did while explaining its partitioned ranger DLC.

Wow if thats true its messed up. I didnt even know retailers had the stones to do this. I wonder if this happens with the bigger publishers aswell or just the smaller ones.

I think dlc is only gonna get worse from this point on. I want to thank all the idiots who bought 15$ map packs and other overpriced crap, you caused this if you didnt buy it in the first place developers/publishers wouldve let it go.

I havent bought dlc in 2 years it just isnt worth it. For the price of Borderlands 2 dlc you can get a indie game that lasts longer and is probably more fun. Season passes also such a big scam that many gamers/idiots supported.

Yeah, I recall one of the first Annoyed Gamer shows explaining how the "get x gun at Gamestop/new armor at Best Buy/etc." DLC extras were actually the retailers' fault. Since those pre-orders drive revenue to those stores, eventually they figured out they could strong-arm publishers into doing this or they wouldn't sell the game or simply feature it as much in their advertisements.

In his latest rant he is right that the industry was better when it was smaller. Especially if you look at the mess we are in now.

There is still alot of good games but this generation was the worst except maybe the Atari era.

I blame the oversaturation of the FPS genre,cod clone multiplayer and COD. Battlefield 3 wanted to be more like cod with the inclusion of Metro, a map that stinks of it. With a lot of choke points, where every Noob can get easy kills by camping or just run and gunning with a shotgun. The other maps also felt smaller when you compare them to BF2 or Vietnam.

I just really hope the fps craze dies this gen and takes cod with it. We need more diversity and publishers actually taking a risk on new ideas.

"Season passes also such a big scam that many gamers/idiots supported."

That's not true at all depending on the content, just like regular DLC. It's not like once content is released, the Season Pass disappears. Borderlands 2 for example. 3/4 have released. If you feel their worth the money based off footage you saw, why spend $10 for each of them, when you can pay $30 for the Season Pass and get the forth for free?

Some take advantage of Season Passes and give you crap content, that's why it's best to do your research before purchasing. Just like every time you buy a new game.

Thing about online pass is you're putting up half a games worth of money (Bioshock: Infinite) and get some DLC upfront, but you have to wait for the rest, and hope they make a lot of DLC so it can be worth it.

Season pass seems like you're investing in the DLC. Kind of reminds me of banks, how they invest the money you put into them.

I don't think it's really a forced thing...like the retailer says, give us pre-order stuff or we won't carry your game. It's more that retailers say, "You want us to push your game more, give us something to go along with it". It comes down to promotion, and is the reason retailers put that incentive in their ads, and why pubs put a bit of effort into it because it nets results.

Take AC4 for example. You think GameStop would be pushing those pre-orders so hard if the publishers didn't give them something in return? They certainly aren't going to not carry a game that sells that much.

It's about trying to make an individual store more attractive to the consumer in the retailers eyes or to make it seem that you have to get it right away or miss out on something cool(Atlus does this with their games, although it tends to be more tangible). It comes down to that when you pre-order, the retailer just gets to use whatever deposit you put down for other stuff while accruing interest.

On Topic: this is a weak excuse for this decision. There are plenty of things which work for pre-order bonuses(as listed by others), and don't penalize people who decide to wait a week or two, or want to check out reviews or whatever. This is a full game mode left out, not some random digital item that doesn't make a huge difference to game play. For them to assume that all diehard gamers would purchase this day one is just bad logic.

You are exactly correct. No one is getting bullied here. Its all business. Retailers and publishers have a good relationship and they both want to maximize profits. This isn't the junior high schoolyard, where one person is beating up another for money.

Gamers sometimes forget that all these companies, ie Sony, MS, Activision, EA, Sucker punch, Sony Santa Monica, etc are all adults and all professionals. They are here to make money. Yes, I would imagine they enjoy what they do but at the end of the day everyone wants as many zeros on their paycheck that they take home to their famlies.

We need the industry to crash, if publishers gonna lock game modes away, then we might have to buy the online mode in the future. From now on, any publisher that does this, is on my boycott list. Too bad Koch media had to do this, i wanted to play Metro so bad, but now, i'll look for a second hand copy.

This isn't Koch's fault. The retail chains bullied them into complying with their demands. When you're a smallish publisher and retailers are threatening to not supply your product unless you chop out a piece of your game and turn it into DLC, you don't have much of a choice unless you feel like losing millions of dollars.

If you don't want to support these practices, just buy the game on GMG or Steam. At least that way you don't have to support the shitty retail chains like GameStop.

Steam also gives you Ranger mode for pre-ordering. So it's not like it was just Gamestop and they said "Hey, take this out and charge $5 for those who don't pre-order, or we won't sell your game". If what they're saying about retailers is true, then Steam did this as well.

Amazon has the same pre-order bonus as well. They all do, it's the "Limited Edition". So to be honest, I think it's a cover up by Koch. Had each retailer had their own exclusive pre-order bonus, I could see this being a valid reason. But a "Limited Edition"? Sounds like EA practices to me.

@kwyjibo

Exactly. Gamestop does have their own exclusive pre-order DLC on top of the Limited Edition. An RPK. Now to me, that sounds like the retailer was like "No, we can't just have the same as everyone else, give us something else too". So Koch gave them a gun. But the Limited Edition is standard no matter where you pre-order. Hence why I said it's a cover up. They pulled this crap on purpose and now that they're called out, they're trying to defend themselves by using "behind the scenes" excuses that's easily believable to the naked eye.

I love my physical media, but this makes me want brick and mortar to die, at at least those who pull this crap on devs/publishers who would OTHERWISE NOT perform this type of business ethic. Bad Ethic. None-the-less.

Leaving out a full game mode is retails fault? Seems all retail wanted was something to offer to those that pre-ordered...likely for advertising purposes, which benefits both the retailer and the publisher. Do you seriously believe that retail would not carry a game that will be popular? This requirement he speaks of is what retailers ask for in order to promote their products for them...like when you buy a game at gamestop and they ask you if you want to pre-order a specific game, or they list the game in their flyers with the bonus right under it. There are other times when a retailer may pay for this bonus instead...say AC3 gamestop extra levels, but that's usually reserved for extremely high selling titles.

The decision to leave out a game mode was admittedly all on the publisher. There are plenty of things which could have been offered instead(as listed in previous comments), and are the same kinds of things offered for many other games from both large and small devs/pubs.

This decision is to make an extra $5 off people who wait, but still want the full experience, and they are capitalizing on it. Either that or they feel it will make more people pre-order the game just to get the full game.

I think it might have been more "give us this exclusive content and we will put your game out front and sell the hell out of it."

Or they received some sort of compensation for it.

I mean if a retailer really went all bully and strong armed some company and threatened blackmail if they don't get what they want then it would be shared with other publishers by the victim. What comes around goes around.